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Local restaurants forced to adapt amid pandemic

Some restaurants have been forced to close
restaurants-during-covid-19
Like most restaurateurs, Sophie Castonguay, left, and Roxanne Carr of Northern Lights Fauxmagerie have had to adapt and ride through the economic storm resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Andrew Autio/Local Journalism Initiative

The food and hospitality sector has undoubtedly been hit hard by the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Restaurants have been closing at an alarming rate in communities across the country. 

Locally, it meant the closure of the city's only East Indian restaurant, Holy Cow in Downtown Timmins. It was meant to be a temporary shutdown, but signage has made it clear it will not re-open.

For one of the city's newer eateries, Northern Lights Fauxmagerie on Cedar Street South, the pandemic took a big bite out of their business at first, but things quickly turned around for the vegan specific enterprise.

In mid-March, they began making meals for the Lord's Kitchen — usually between 120 to 150 meals, which would be picked up every Saturday and offered plenty of variety.

“That helped us. That sustained us. But then I guess the funding ran out,” said owner Roxanne Carr, noting that a snail's pace of customers have trickled through since Ontario moved into “Stage 3” of re-opening the economy.

“People are starting to come in, but it’s not like it was before. It’s changed. We've been adapting.”

Adapting has been the key for just about every small business throughout the pandemic. The scramble was on to find ways to offer goods and services in a safe and responsible manner. Carr had to hire professionals to do some remodelling and installation of Plexiglas barriers, noting they couldn't continue to operate with their old setup. 

Recently, they've been setting up shop at farmers’ markets, and have added new offerings from their take home meal kits.

“It’s just about having to adapt, and the community has stepped up, and we're so grateful that we're still here. We know that some of our friends are not. We're just going forward, we don't want to close.”

Northern Lights Fauxmagerie has only been open since last July, and has already endured two floods. 

“This is what we call a social enterprise. It’s community driven. It’s locally driven. We're working with the Mennonites now on what we call 'Thursday Bounty.' We bring in all their items.”

They have also formed a partnership with Borealis Fresh Farms in South Porcupine for fresh local greens.

Carr said that over the past few months, there have been times when certain items and supplies have been hard to come by, and that they are taking steps to safeguard against that from happening again.

“We're really working now to make sure that if something else occurs, that we're going to be a part of a local food system, and develop that here, with people that can produce foods here.”

They are hoping to have their plant-based meats and cheese products available at grocery stores throughout the region sometime in the near future.

For Radical Gardens, it’s been a “pretty interesting” few months, according to owner Brianna Humphrey.

“Initially when we opened in 2015, we used to be a grocery store — well, a farm-to-table online farmer's market that delivered to your door. So we had a lot of infrastructure already set up to help people through this pandemic,” she said.

When the country went into lockdown, Humphrey and her team quickly opened an online grocery store that delivered city-wide.

“We have an app that people have downloaded, and we had already gone through the growing pains of trying to figure that out.”

She called it “The Apocalyptic Bodega” and it offered bulk items such as cases of paper towels and toilet paper which, of course, was an issue for grocers early on in the shutdown, and food items such as active dry yeast and fish fillets.

“Stuff that our food service suppliers and our other suppliers were trying move out of their warehouses. There were some pretty sweet savings there.”

One interesting development for Radical Gardens during the pandemic was a spike in demand for highly extravagant customized birthday cakes.

“Kids didn't have birthday parties anymore. We're still doing that quite a bit.”

Pre-pandemic, there was a small amount of seating available for customers to enjoy their meals. That was quickly eliminated and the entire space was dedicated to packing boxes and getting takeout and delivery orders ready to go. The restaurant is now closed to the public indefinitely.

“The menu didn't really change. We're basically still doing the same thing we always have. We just increased the stuff we offered. We've moved into appetizers, and the AGCO allowed us to deliver alcohol. So we moved quickly into cocktail packages, really interesting cocktail packages,” said Humphrey.

“We just kind of adapted. Day to day, week to week, which is pretty much the same thing we've been doing since the day we opened. We just hustled it out, and came out totally OK.”

Humphrey said the community “definitely supported” their continued takeout food service and that it’s been very busy most days. Of note, Pad Thai and cheesy bread have been in extreme demand.

Most summers, Radical Gardens is also busy with catering services, and their food truck known as The Outlaw, but in 2020, that isn't happening. They did catch a break of sorts with the timing of the lockdown.

“We hadn't actually invested any sort of money into either of those things, because it just wasn't time yet, so we were able to nip those in the bud before they cost us anything.”

She is still paying close attention to ongoing developments with the provincial government regarding catering and food services, but added she isn't in a hurry to get back into it.

The restaurant was featured in the Ontario Chamber's report in the middle of the pandemic for best practices, and how quickly they were able to alter their operations. For Humphrey, she said you have to take the good with the bad. There is actually a bright side to it all.

“It has uncomplicated our lives. We do a little bit less. It’s definitely knocked my stress level down a bit. I'll take that any day.”

- Andrew Autio, Local Journalism Initiative, Timmins Daily Press


Andrew Autio

About the Author: Andrew Autio

Andrew Autio covers civic matters under the Local Journalism Initiative out of the Timmins Daily Press, which is funded by the Government of Canada
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